Friday, October 8, 2010

Artificial tissue response

      I can honestly say that I find this an incredible breakthrough in science. They very idea of growing human tissues in a lab seems like the stuff of science fiction. Yet, there it is. I like the idea very much: make human tissues for people with burns, heart & kidney diseases and other life-threatening illnesses. This is a great help to patients in desperate need of tissue replacements. I also find it appeasing that these tissues don't require the use of embryonic stem cells to grow. I, myself, don't have a problem with that aspect, but a good number of people do. It's good to see that those people can't start a controversy of stem cells with this project.
     I have to admit, when I first saw that mouse with an ear on its back, I was more than a little freaked out. I mean, to watch tissues grow outside of the body has got to be quite a spectacle. But passed the freaky appearance, there was some really hard work backing all of this up. Considering what these people had to do to get the tissues to grow the right way, they had their hands full. For example, growing tissues in a simulated weightless environment was genius. I never would have guessed to cultivate cells in a rotating bioreactor to put them in simulated free fall. That's some pretty good thinking. They also had to closely mimic the environment in which those cells would normally grow in the human body. You can't tell me that it wouldn't be arduous to unlock biochemical signals to get cells to grow and multiply. In my opinion, these researchers should be commended for their work.
http://www.pbs.org/saf/1107/features/body.htm

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